Category: Maps

“Anytime I feel lost, I pull out a map and stare. I stare until I have reminded myself that life is a giant adventure, so much to do, to see.”— Angelina Jolie

2014 has been a great year for getting out of my comfort zone, and in keeping with that theme, last month I gave my first-ever conference presentation with a couple of amazing colleagues at HighEdWeb 2014 in Portland, Oregon. I wish I could say that I nailed it, but honestly I tried to pack waaaay too much information into a limited amount of time, and was pretty nervous for the first 10 minutes or so. Still, it was well attended, we got some great questions and feedback afterward, and it was an exciting new experience that I would definitely recommend to anyone else looking to push out of their professional or personal comfort zone.

This presentation was about online maps—specifically higher-ed campus maps—and over the past several months I’ve collected a lot of information and resources that I’d like to share, in case it’s helpful to anyone else who is new-ish to online maps. Some of this will apply specifically to people working at colleges and universities, but there’s also some that could be useful to anyone interested in web-based mapping.

Over the past several years mobile devices have brought us a lot of new great features and capabilities, things that people now are starting to expect from computing devices. Features like touch-capability, then multi-touch, GPS to tell where the device (and user) is, motion- and light-sensing, device orientation, access to the device’s camera, and even more. Wouldn’t it be great if web developers had access to all of those amazing new device features? Well, some of that is possible right now.Continue reading “Super-simple Geolocation”